• wry •
Printable Version Pronunciation: ray (r + aye) • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Twisted, crooked or bent, as a wry face. 2. Humorous with a clever twist, as a wry wit.
Notes: Today's Good Word is an adjective, which means it may be compared, which is why we find wrier wit and the wriest wit—though most dictionaries now accept wryer and wryest, as well. The adverb is wryly and the noun, wryness. This healthy family also contains awry "crooked, off course," as to lose your way or go awry on the way home and arrive with your hat awry.
In Play: Today's Good Word can be twisted or crooked: "When Shorty's waitress dropped his sandwich and bent it, she was surprised when he sent it back to the kitchen because he hadn't ordered wry bread." If you like your martinis with a twist, you should enjoy wry humor—it is humor with a twist. In fact, unless we have made a wry mess of things, you should be able to find something in our Good Word series that passes for it.
Word History: This very good word comes directly from Middle English wrien "to turn", a reduction of Old English wrigian "to twist or turn". The [wr] you see in it is the same you see in writhe, wreath, and wrath (a somewhat twisted state). It shows up in Russian vertet' "to turn" and Latin vertere "to turn" and versare "to turn repeatedly". The roots of the Latin verbs appear in a host of English words about turning, such as invert, introvert and revert. The English word verse comes from vertare, perhaps a turn of a boustrophedon. Finally, that is the same [wr] we see in wriggle which, if pronounced by a child who says wabbit instead of rabbit, comes out wiggle.
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